Biman, Adhir speak, doors kept open for ‘future alliance’
Times of India | 24 October 2024
Kolkata: Despite its decision to “not share a seat” with Bengal Congress in the forthcoming bypolls in six assembly constituencies, CPM is keeping doors to a possible future alliance with the party in Bengal before the 2026 polls. CPM seniors on Wednesday indicated that the party had conveyed the message to Congress functionaries.
Sources said that on Tuesday former state Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury called up Left Front chairman Biman Bose following instructions from AICC general secretary KC Venugopal.
Bose told Chowdhury, sources said, that despite his efforts to keep the Sitai seat for Congress, Forward Bloc’s opposition prevented it. Bose said that while the list had already been drawn up, future options of a Left-Congress alliance should be kept open.
A section of Congress seniors on Wednesday said that since 2016 there had been a number of instances when Congress and Left Front had fielded their own candidates in bypolls. “Congress did not field a candidate in the Khardaha bypoll in 2021, keeping the alliance solidarity in mind. But that didn’t stop it from contesting the Shantipur bypoll (though CPM had fielded a candidate,” said a Congress neta.
“Congress is a separate party and it is not part of the Left Front. We have our own political identity. India bloc was formed to stop BJP, but that does not mean either of the parties deviated from its own agenda,” said Shubhankar Sarkar, state Congress president. “We will go to the people and ask them to compare the three regimes in Bengal under Congress, Left Front, and Trinamool,” he added. Sarkar did not rule out a future alliance with Left Front.
Meanwhile, ISF MLA Nawsad Siddique said that the alliance could have been stronger with the presence of Congress. “It would have been better if Congress was part of the election alliance. We will now have to stop the division of the opposition votes,” he said. ISF has fielded Piyarul Islam in Haroa.